Mission Mission

Amanda Dolan, co-founder of Beards Beards Beards: A Theatre Company, alerts us to an event benefiting her organization’s debut show:

We’re producing our first show this summer (Emo! The Musical), and we’re throwing a fund raiser this weekend in….where else? The Mission. The party is being thrown at the San Francisco Mime Troupe (21st and Treat), cheap ($5!), and all the money goes towards our upcoming performance!

Link to event flyer.

I’m about to relate a story attributed to an anonymous source. As journalism class and The Wire taught us, be wary. The girl that told me this might be a compulsive liar, or I might be a compulsive liar, so be wary. Also, I make unwarranted disparaging remarks about Nairobi, for which I apologize in advance.

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Friend X: i had a very umm sobering experience last night
Allan: ?
Friend X: and im gonna try to avoid going out at least untill next weekend when my ex is here visitig
i was wasted really wasted
and a cabbie took advantage of that
he literally threw me out of the cab and on to the pavement and took off with my wallet and phone in there
Sent at 7:24 PM on Monday
Friend X: im covered in bruises and found blood in my hair and am pretty much terrified
Allan: omg
Friend X: yeah.
Allan: what is this, nairobi?
Friend X: exactly
my roommate came home today
and i said jenn i think i need a hug
and was completely serious
i just started crying
kinda a wreck
and in drinking too much ive been puking all day
which is sucky in general but it hurts too cuz im so bruised up
apparently someone found the wallet and called wcities today
i met up with them in the mission (while trying not to puke on the bus)
and got it back but he took all 100 in cash which i expected
but every penny too
and my muni pass
nairobi.
Allan: where did he pick you up?
Friend X: in front of kilowatt
Allan: wow that makes it mission relevant. can i put your story on my blog if i promise not to call you a hater?
Friend X: yeah if you just say ” a friend of mine”
or name changed
Allan: i just think the public has a right to know it’s fuckin nairobi out there.
guard your kidneys bitches!
Friend X: no kidding
im honestly wondering if i should go to a dr to make sure i dont have a concussion or anything
plus i feel like an idiot
and i was blackout drunk which is bad
and i dont remember a significant portion of my night
but i do remember what happened and how terrifying it was
Allan: yeah i’d grab a checkup
Sent at 7:35 PM on Monday
Friend X: i have a lump on my temple from where i hit my head
and am super bruised all over

So if you get blotto at Kilowatt or anywhere else, hold on to your organs.

Link to Kilowatt.

Link to more crime-related Mission Mission coverage.

Link to post in which I call somebody a hater.

Photo: stoney taxi view by jfredericksen

Mission Mission pal Sonia hips us to something good:

tonight lulacruza is playing at little baobab (19th & mission). this duo from argentina & colombia is absolutely incredible – from all their many south american instruments to her sultry/melodic voice to the beats and sampling under spanish euphony – this is some of my favorite music to hear live.

they’re going on at 8:30pm tonight [...] they do a fair amount of improvisation live.

Link to Lulacruza on MySpace.

Link to more Mission Mission music coverage.

San Franciscans ask the right questions I guess. Somebody at some San Francisco fundraiser (likely not in the Mission) asked the question that gave rise to this fiery Obama response to unfounded attacks by Hillary and McCain. They say he’s an asshole for asserting that Americans might be bitter about the way their government treats them. Obama says, “Sheeeeeeeeit – o’ course they bitter! They bitter as fuck and I’m here to help!”

More Media & Politics on Mission Mission.

Yeah I was at AT&T Park when the torch was supposed to run by, and it was a bummer that it didn’t, but whatever. It was fun watching the chaos and playing frisbee on a cordoned-off street amid protesters and riot police. I took some video and put it together last night. It’s short and sweet, features a standout song from Back From The Grave Vol. 2, and a surprise ending.

Browse Mission Mission coverage of previous protests in San Francisco here.

Browse Mission Mission’s video category here.

Dolores Park Movie Night is back in action, starting tomorrow night at 8pm. Link. (Thanks, Michelle)

Photo courtesy Lesley Speed’s “A World Ruled by Hilarity: Gender and Low Comedy in the Films of Amy Heckerling” at Senses of Cinema.

This is a picture I took of Jamie Stewart’s guitar, battered to death during one of Xiu Xiu‘s last performances at Bottom of the Hill. It was a great show, as I’m sure Saturday’s will be (even though Katie Eastburn isn’t in tow this time). This is Mission-relevant because I always love the walk home from Bottom of the Hill: deserted streets, crisp night air, fog pouring over Twin Peaks, etc.

Link to that “Boy Soprano” video in which Xiu Xiu are characters in a knockoff of Nintendo 64-style video games like Super Mario World and Gradius III.

Link to Xiu Xiu on MySpace.

MAPP for short. I learned it had two ‘p’s and fell in love with the thing on the same night. Free concerts and performance art all around the 24th Street Mission region this past Saturday night. The line-up changes so fast and so often that you just have to show up to find out what’s going on. Check out the project here.

Best dancing I found on Saturday was at Red Poppy – live Rumba band who went ahead and played beats from all over the place. I had to take off 3 layers and 2 scarves to keep dancing. I didn’t get to the neighborhood until 9 p.m. or so, and that’s my only complaint. Next MAPP, I’m there from beginning to end.

Fate keeps bringing the Heavy Metal Bike Shop and I together. Fate and the inevitable unexpected perils of riding a bike, however sturdy, in San Francisco. Monday night, for example, I got the call: “Hey, you should blog about the Heavy Metal Bike Shop. Don’t you love that place?” Yes, I do. I ride past Heavy Metal every day on my way to work, right after I pass the Post Office, wishing I had something fun to send out, and right before I pass Mitchell’s, wishing they had vegan ice cream. That same night, my housemate was kind enough to help me adjust the not-very-adjustable pieces of my tiny green Schwinn, which is the sort of bike where the bumper stickers stuck to it are almost all rubbed off. Tuesday morning, I hopped on my bike to find it transformed into a see-saw, tipping backwards and forwards as I tried to hold on with parts not meant for holding on until I finally reached Heavy Metal, that sanctuary of basic tools, about 5 miles into my daily ride. They let me use a wrench, chatted with me amiably about the inflatable water slide size and weight of my bike (both absurd: it’s like some sadistic exercise regimen for children), gave a little bike-seat-angle advice, and sent me on my way.

It was nice to step into this little bicycle trove again, which I first experienced on a beautiful sunny day, just before Hanukkah. There was no school that day, and I was gleefully anticipating an afternoon overflowing with a bike ride which I intended to loop along the Bay, to glide past the Golden Gate Bridge, to wind south from the northern tip of San Francisco to Market Street, to coast victoriously back into the Mission by nightfall or, who knows, to see the sunset out at Ocean Beach. So the moment came to leave the office where I work mornings and out I went for about a mile of cycling as planned, until a screw laying innocuously in the bike path punched into my back tire. You know the sound.

The first moment of fate.

I yanked the screw out of my tire and adjusted my plans for the day, walking to a spot nearby with a view of the Bay and its Bridge, and read for a few hours. I didn’t want to get stuck downtown during rush hour, when bikes are forbidden on BART, so I walked to the Embarcadero Station around 4 and stepped onto the first train headed towards the 24th Street/Mission Station. The first thing that greeted my eyes on that first train (2nd moment of fate) were bike handles I recognized. One of my good friends had fissioned under the pressure of art school finals, gone to get a haircut, and hopped on the train home 5 or so hours earlier than usual. So there were were, and she thought I should bring my bike to her boyfriend’s favorite bike shop, the one on her walk home from the BART Station, Heavy Metal. She was kind enough to walk with me even though her bike tires were intact.

Inside the bike shop I found friendly folks who trudged good-naturedly through the layers of intrigue surrounding my bike. It’s so small, so green, so heavy, so nostalgic and so impossible to find a new tube for. They found me an old tube instead, not the right size but one that fits, all dusted with whatever fills an unopened box after a few years. Now I need a Presta pump for one tire and a Schraeder for the other. My old tube had three distinct holes in it from that assiduous screw.

I spent a while there. I chatted with a man wearing an Elvis Presley necklace, I found some chocolate gelt on the counter and learned where to find vegan chocolate gelt. That day, I heeded fate and headed home on my pumped-up bike only $15 later. $15 plus BART fare.

Plug1 was talking about the “vertical earthquake” problem recently, and while it’s most apparent closer to downtown, the Mission gets its share of little tremors. The latest is a 50-foot luxury condo complex planned for the corner of 18th and Valencia. When the thing goes up, views of the above mural will be obstructed forever. Tomorrow is the final appeal. If you’d care to voice your opposition, aLittleDisplay’sBlog has all the deets. Link. (Via Curbed SF)

Photo by Kari Orvik (part of a series commemorating the threatened view).